On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 19:59:18 +0000 (UTC), Tim Tyler 
wrote:



>r norman  wrote or quoted:
>> On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 04:46:39 +0000 (UTC), Tim Tyler
 wrote:

>> >Because of global competion for nutrients, organisms do not have
>> >to be in the same environment or physical location to be in
>> >competition with one another.
>> >
>> >I.e. those resources that are tied up in the form of forests should be 
>> >subtracted from the pool of resorces available for forming bacteria.
>> >

>> Only in a tropical rain forest do
>> you find nutrients primarily tied up in multicellular organisms 

>there are *plenty* of other forests besides tropical rain forests.
>
>The world's largest forests are in Russia.  If you want to
>see forests, it is not to tropical zones - but to Siberia -
>that you should head.

By "nutrients", ecologists refer to limiting items like nitrogen and
phosphorus, perhaps iron and other trace minerals.  These are the
factors that limit productivity.   We already had a go-around where I
agreed that eukaryotes had the majority of carbon biomass, but that is
not considered a nutrient for which there is competition.  In terms of
nitrogen and phosphorus, prokaryotes have by far more biomass than
eukaryotes.

Furthermore, in virtually all terrestrial habitats, soil stores a
tremendous amount of the limiting nutrients.  That is true of taiga,
the spruce-fir coniferous forests in Siberia you are referring to.
Only in tropical rain forests is the soil quite deficient in these
factors -- most of the nutrients are tied up in the eukaryotic
biomass.  Furthermore, in every habitat on earth, it is the
prokaryotes that generally control the availability of nutrients.  So
it there is to be simple competition for nutrients that controls
things, the prokaryotes would win hands down in virtually every
instance.

I have never denied that there are large quantities of very large,
very "complex" organisms in virtually all of the habitats I live in.
Virtually all of my friends and even some of my relatives are large
multicellular organisms.  All I am trying to convince you of is the
simple fact that we large, "complex", multicellular organisms are not
"taking over" from the "simple" prokaryotes.  They are here in
enormous numbers.  They have always been here, as long as life has
existed on earth.  And every indication is that they will continue to
be here as a major and often controlling factor in the biosphere for
as long as life persists on earth.
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